Sudden and random prose from Columbus, Ohio.

Shaker Heights

Very early Saturday morning, I Twittered that I was far too exhausted to post a blog entry, but that I’d do my damnedest to do so that evening. At the time, I was sitting with my laptop in (where else?) my lap, in a hallway on the first floor of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Cleveland. That predawn in Shaker Heights found me “night angeling” at Jurasicon, the spring youth conference for the Ohio-Meadville District. Susie was there, part of the two carloads of us who came from Columbus. (A night angel is an adult and/or youth who walks through the church to make sure everyone is okay. Early Saturday morning it’s an easy job, because all the kids are easy to find. At that hour they’re all flying off the walls.)

You’ve probably figured out by now that blog entry never materialized. This was not–repeat, not–due to a lack of material to cover. Quite the opposite is true. On Friday, I turned 48, and being in Shaker Heights as a sponsor at a UU youth conference was the perfect way to celebrate. Susie has made a 180-degree turn from the barely social shrinking violet she was at the first conference she attended, last year in Pittsburgh. She gravitated straight toward the friends she met at previous conferences, and her feet barely touched the floor all weekend.

Susie (left) and two of her pals at Jurasicon, Shaker Heights, Ohio, April 29-May 1, 2011.

The conference (“con” in youth parlance) was a joyous event, but there were some bumps in the road. One of the youths I was sponsoring, and who rode up with me from Columbus, came down with strep throat on Saturday morning. My co-sponsor and I thought he was overreacting at first, since we couldn’t see any white spots in his mouth or throat, and he seemed to perk up after a little while.

After a very little while, that is. By the end of the morning, he was lethargic, the throat felt worse, and the telltale white spots were there. I suggested that he bunk out in the sanctuary. It was a big enough space that people could stay away from him, and the only room that had little, if any traffic. Someone came up from Columbus and took him home, and the other sponsors related anecdotes about the “chickenpox con” from two years ago–which made me quite thankful Susie had been too young to attend (although she has had chickenpox and is now, presumably, immune.)

A young girl I was sponsoring broke her toe playing Ultimate in the field across from the church. (“No violence” is one of the standard non-bendable rules at youth cons, yet games of Kissy-Face and Ultimate are very popular, and the kids play them in a way that makes Rollerball look tame. I think it’s the same as the way Quaker boarding schools’ field hockey games are frightening to watch.) A paramedic sponsor splinted her toe with two spoons at first, and later with the more orthodox makeshift splint, a Popsicle stick.

Susie and her friend Cynthia performed an improvisational comedy act during the Talent Show, and after the Talent Show came the bridging ceremony, for high school seniors attending their final conference. By the time it was over, there was not a dry eye in the Fellowship Hall. I speak from personal experience when I say that many of the friends you make at these cons will be part of your life even 30+ years later.

I am sorry to have to report that Susie crashed very cruelly back to earth late Sunday afternoon, once we were back in Columbus. She spent the weekend in very loving surroundings, with friends on all sides, talking, laughing, and singing with her. Late in the afternoon, she went to the playground near our house, and soon came home in tears. A girl from her school (who lives in the neighborhood) harassed her, pulled her hair, and beat her in the face and head. Susie was neither bruised nor bleeding, but she was badly shaken up. We called the police, and when the officer came, he was talking to Susie when the girl who attacked her went by our house on her bike. The officer pulled her aside and talked to her, but did not arrest her. Apparently, unless they witness it directly, it’s a she said-she said type of situation.

Yesterday morning, Susie and I spoke to the assistant principal of her school, and he said he would speak to the girl’s parents that day. Despite his assurances that Susie is in his jurisdiction from the moment she steps out of our house en route to the bus stop until the moment she crosses our threshold again, both Steph and I doubt she’s completely safe. The school handbook spills a lot of ink about its zero-tolerance policy about bullying, but it all boils down pretty much to, “Bullying is bad, mmm-kay?” (spoken like South Park‘s Mr. Mackey)

Last week brought a surprise to me–a much needed one at that. My supervisor at the Discovery Exchange (Columbus State’s bookstore) emailed me to ask if I was available to work evenings this and next week. I replied within minutes of reading the email (“Yes! Yes! Yes!”), and have gone straight to the bookstore from the Industrial Commission last night and tonight. The pace is much slower than during rush, and I’m enjoying it. The last few days at the I.C. have been busy, trying to finish work before a computer upgrade, and the bookstore job has been the perfect place to decompress.